Second Short Poem
Emily Dickinson
I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us - don't tell! They'd advertise - you know!
How dreary to be somebody! How public like a frog To tell one's name the livelong day To an admiring bog!
My translation:
Soy nadie! Quién eres? eres nadie, también? Entonces allí es una par de nosotros - no se lo digas! Ellos se anunciar - tu sabes! Cómo deprimente estar alguien! Cómo público gustar una la rana a contar alguien nombre el vivir largo la día a de admiración pantano.
I finally got some good accents or titles? Something like that.... anyway, gracias todos! You are someone to me. ![]()
3 Answers
I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us - don't tell! They'd advertise - you know!
How dreary to be somebody! How public like a frog To tell one's name the livelong day To an admiring bog!
My translation:
Soy nadie! Quién eres? eres nadie, también? Entonces allí es una par de nosotros - no se lo digas! Ellos se anunciar - tu sabes! Cómo deprimente estar alguien! Cómo público gustar una la rana a contar alguien nombre el vivir largo la día a de admiración pantano.
So this is interesting.
Normally, if you were to say "Are you nobody, too?" the proper way to say it would be "You aren´t anybody, either." because it is in the negative form. But this is a poem, so it has a bit of a different meaning and isn´t going to be written perfectly grammatically correct. If you wanted to say the latter, it would be "No eres nadie, tampoco." But the poem makes it sound positive, whereas my transation is negative, if that makes sense. So the way you translated it, "Eres nadie, también" seems right, even though it´s wrong. Because in English, you wouldn´t normally say that sentence in the way she wrote it. Again, it´s a poem, so it´s a little different.
I would fix some of the other sentences as follows...
¡Soy nadie! ¿Quién eres? Eres nadie, ¿también? Entonces hay un ["hay" means "there is" or "there are", and "par" is masculine.] par de nosotros - ¡no se lo digas! Ellos lo anunciarían ["lo" because there is an unspoken "it" here, and "anunciarían" is future conditional 3rd person plural of advertise, "they would advertise"] - ¡tú lo sabes [tú has an accent mark and I put "lo" here because it is like saying "you know it" or "you know (that thing/fact)"]!
Cómo deprimente estar alguien! Cómo público como una ["como" means "like"] rana a contarle a [alguien is the object, so there is a "le" there and a personal A] alguien ....[I left out the rest because I am not sure what it means IN ENGLISH. ha ha]
I also threw in all the upside down exclamation/question marks.
And I found this website that had the poem translated into Spanish. Some of it is lost in the translation, but I assume this is the widely known translation since I found it on several sites.
Emily Dickenson "Soy nadie" poem
.
As missy says, this is not terribly understandable in English, even: To an admiring bog? or for an admiring bog..
Wonderful! Keep at it!